BT Openreach Test New 1Gbps Broadband Pole Mounted FTTdp G.fast Kit

Openreach (BT) has confirmed that they’re testing a new Fibre-to-the-distribution-point (FTTdp) style of G.fast broadband technology that mounts hardware from NetComm Wireless on top of telegraph poles, which shows that the operator hasn’t given up on FTTdp.

Some readers will readily recall that many of Openreach’s earliest trials were deployed using smaller G.fast nodes (distribution points), which were fixed on top of telegraph poles or under manholes and fed by a fibre optic cable. A small box would often then be built nearby in order to supply this kit with power.

The advantage of an FTTdp model like the one described above is that you could build the G.fast kit much closer to homes (e.g. within 100 metres), which would in theory make it possible to deliver Gigabit speeds to end users (results from an early trial). The disadvantage was that small G.fast dp units could only handle a few ports and this sort of deployment is generally more expensive.

However, improvements in the technology have since made it possible for Openreach to run G.fast over longer runs of copper cable (up to about 500 metres but you need to be under 350m for speeds of 300Mbps), which in turn has made it feasible for the operator to deploy the service by building an “extension pod” on to the side of existing PCP street cabinets (see new pod pictures). This is cheaper and the pods can handle up to 48 ports (rising to 96 this summer).

We expect all or most of the operator’s initial roll-out of G.fast (targeted to cover 10 million UK premises by 2020) to adopt the PCP cabinet + pod approach, while the previous FTTdp method has taken a back-seat. However this week Openreach revealed that they were testing a new FTTdp based approach using G.fast dp kit from NetComm Wireless.

The hardware in these pictures is experimental and remains very similar to the VDSL2 (FTTC) based NDD-4100 that is depicted on the NetComm Wireless website, albeit using G.fast. The NDD-4100 was only able to deal with 4 end-user ports + 1 for the GPON (fibre optic) supply and the G.fast dp above has the same limit. Several dps would thus be needed to serve a busy street.

The new G.fast kit is also reverse powered (i.e. that small cream coloured box next to the cable reel is the Reverse Power Feed Unit), which means that Openreach could significantly cut their costs and thus make it easier / quicker to deploy the service by asking end-users to power the local dp (we’ve talked about this before).

Naturally reverse power may throw up some questions about regulation, safety, backup power and end-users electricity costs. On the other hand it would be a very low power service (only a small impact on bills – depending on how many lines are used) and we suspect that many people in rural areas would gladly sacrifice a bit of their electricity if it meant being able to get ultrafast broadband.

Openreach also informed ISPreview.co.uk that the new NetComm Wireless G.fast kit is able to harness the full spectrum frequency available to the technology (i.e. it can use up to 212MHz instead of the 106MHz of initial deployments). As such the operator claims to have been testing it with downstream speeds of up to 1Gbps and uploads of up to 300Mbps, which is a fair bit faster than their earliest FTTdp + G.fast proof of concept trials.

Apparently the above speeds are being achieved at a distance of around 40 metres (copper run from the G.fast dp and into your home). By comparison the original G.fast Proof of Concept trials, which occurred a few years ago, were able to deliver an aggregate (download + upload) speed of around 600-700Mbps at the same distance.

Clearly Openreach are still developing the FTTdp + G.fast option for future deployments but for now we still don’t know how much of a role it might play, particularly with the new aspiration to roll-out much more FTTP than currently planned (here).

By Mark Jackson
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on Twitter, Google+, Facebook and Linkedin.

It’s good to know they haven’t binned the concept completely. Hopefully one day there’s a leap somewhere in this technology in a few years although more expensive it wont be as expensive as FTTP. It’s more worthwhile than G.fast for obvious reasons.

If they can’t find a way of including more ports with fttdp.
Similar places like my street which have lots of lines from a single telegraph pole will have be content with the cabinet G.fast approach unless OR decide to go full on FTTP in the future skipping FTTdp completely. Making it cheaper in the longer term.

If you’ve got to get GPON to a pole with just 4 properties to serve all within ~300 meters of that pole and we’re assuming that the lines are overhead then just run GPON that little further into those 4 houses and be done with it.

IIRC, about half of drop lines are overhead, a quarter are underground, and a quarter in some kind of multi-home setup (MDU flats, or wired across tarraces, etc). Some proportion of the underground ones are directly buried without ducts.

It might be that this kind of deployment works better/cheaper for directly-buried and MDU lines, and that overhead lines are better suited to connectorised fibre.

But don’t underestimate the additional cost and admin hassle for making appointments to actually get fibre into a set of individual homes.

Which would be fine if its just to homes next to that pole. This would be great for farms ect. Where there is a long daisy chain of copper on telegraph polls going to farms. Getting GPON to one of these box and not needing to dig up farm land or multiple different properties land, as there will be a copper cable going the last mile.

I’m currently seeing the new G.Fast pods pop up near where I live, so be interesting to see what speed increases it may give. However, like other posters I can only see if benefitting the few that are close enough to the cabinet whilst those with poor speeds already won’t see any benefit.

“Naturally reserve power may throw up some questions about regulation, safety, backup power and end-users electricity costs.”

I assume that should read “Naturally reverse power”.

I can’t think that there are any particular safety or regulatory issues beyond what already applies to mains powered devices like modem/routers. I’d anticipate the RPN capability was built into the g.fast modem/router and it would be current limited so a short on the line didn’t cause problems. Yes, line power is a nominal 50V, but that’s not a dangerous voltage level.

As far as backup power is concerned, surely if the customer has a power cut and their g.fast modem/router isn’t working, it’s entirely irrelevant that the g.fast node has stopped working too. Or have I missed something? If we ever get to the stage that the voice service is working over BB too then, presumably, backup power would have to be applied to the router/modem (as it is with ONTs on FTTP installations using the fibre for voice).

If we take a sub-loop length of (say) 250m of 0.5mm diameter cable, or 500 metres total run, that will have a resistance of 43 ohms. The maximum power that could be delivered to a load over that distance using a 50V source is around 580ma at 25v, or about 14.5W. At the customer end it will, of course, be 580ma at 50v or a bit under 28W. Half the power would be dissipated in the phone wiring, and it would cost perhaps £3 a month in electricity costs to the customer. It seems that 250m is about the maximum that RPF vendors are working with and, in practice, most lines would probably be shorter and waste less power in the wiring. Nevertheless, I would say that if RPF g.fast is to be viable, then any node will probably have to be capable of running a single line using perhaps 12W. Note that as more lines are activated, then the power requirement goes up, but the share per line should go down as I suspect the incremental power requirement will be of the order of 3-4W per line.

The costs per customer will therefore go down the more lines are activated. I’d anticipate closer to £1-£2 a month with a reasonable take-up.

Of course it will take sophisticated multi-line power harvesting at the node, perhaps by drawing the same current from all lines to equalise costs, albeit that would be at the expense of circuit complexity. Alternatively, a constant voltage from all customers would mean those on shorter lines would bear more of the costs as they’d be delivering more current.

In all, there’s a lot of work to be done, but I’m sure that there are several companies working on this.

Rather than my back-of-an-envelope calculation, here’s a more considered version I’ve just found on a cursory search.

I always love that graphic of the cabinet in Slough providing coverage to the whole of Berkshire. Really good way to show actual behaviour, right?

But wait, what does it show behaviour of? It certainly isn’t of G.Fast.

Wait some more… Do any of the graphics show G.Fast? Is any of it relevant at all? The short answer is no. It wasn’t useful in 2012 and it certainly isn’t after 5 years of ongoing research. Its an ant-puff piece, no more.

When faced with technology advances, Neil sums up his attitude best with: “it doesn’t seem right to me.”

That answer leads to decisions like making a man with a red flag walk in front of a car.

The commercial sense of which you speak would seem to mean “convincing the new people that we have to deal with in the government that this technology is as good as FTTP, so we can get the taxpayer to pay for it”.

I don’t know how many miles of fibre you’d need to lay to bring it close enough to premises for this to tech to work but I’d be interested in any arguments that support the case that BT will, at some point, make a start on that at any scale. Can anyone advance any?

But, sorry to drag us back to reality for a moment, that’s all irrelevant.

How is the device going to be backhauled without running fibre to it, as that is what is needed for it to be deployed at any scale. The connectivity will have to magic itself from the aggregation node to the street-level devices.

So in the meantime debating this is like discussing how many different colours of unicorns there are in the world.

So, for instance, line length c. 1km – for this to be a gigabit solution, you’d need at least 9 devices inline along the cable length.

Maybe twice as many where the condition of the aluminium or copper is dismal.

OK, it doesn’t have to be able to “do gigabit” to each property, does it. But for it to have that potential those repeaters are going to have to go in. I don’t care to even try to calculate how many would be needed for a roll-out at any scale. Millions?

Can anyone advance an argument that BT will be getting started on that at any time in the foreseeable future?

Who can say what will be needed, because it is mostly a research topic for now.

But for a DPU like this, for 4 lines, remember that it immediately has access to at least 4 lines for bonded backhaul.

If G.Fast gets to 300Mbps @300m per line, then you’d need 2 repeaters to reach 900m with a gigabit.

But by the time BT are deploying FTTPdp, where will the longer-range G.Fast have been deployed? Will BT have pushed forward-power DPUs out from the cabinet by 300m? 600m?

While BT’s deployment for 2017-2020 looks like cabinet-based pods, they need a strategy for going deeper beyond this. Making a decision between forward-powered pods at 300m, vs reverse-powered DPUs at the DP, vs FTTP, is something they need to be thinking about now, so that *is* reality now.

Who needs to advance an argument about starting now? You just need to advance an argument that it should be researched now.

Others can judge whether negative, or simply realistic, based on and not limited to:

– BT’s historical reluctance to invest (related largely to monopoly position);
– BT’s long-term history of making rather poor decisions;
– How ancient and poor a significant enough amount of the line plant is to render copper (or aluminium) backhaul unrealistic;
– Just how many of the repeaters and devices would need to go in;
– The size and scale of that project

.. and the two killers:

– The fact that this country is heading towards “broke” may well scupper taxpayer investment
– BT’s pensions burden

Others can decide whether it’s really realistic to imagine that the sort of speeds being bandied about will ever see the light of day.

I simply see no point in even discussing the theoretical capabilities of a solution if there is simply no way on earth that such a solution will ever see the light of day.

I did question if anyone can come up with a compelling case for why this is wrong, and nobody has done so yet. Why is it wrong?

DTMark you just come across as being negative on any BT post. Obviously you have an axe to grind we know that but, it’s just tiresome. If you don’t want to discuss it as it won’t see the light of day then don’t. Why would we waste time trying to convince you?

As regards BT’s ultra-fast capabilities, again, this makes me giggle. Half the country can already get that from cable and has been able to for a while now.

While BT tinkers at the edges of coming up with what they see as a “premium product”, their main competitor has it as standard. By the time BT deploys “ultrafast” – the threshold they’re aiming at being 100Mbps, but potentially up to 300Mbps, Virgin will have gigabit speeds.

BT’s product will remain the “poor man’s product”. Far from premium and from being able to attract a premium price. So I’m asking where the money is going to come from that will make this possible. It isn’t going to attract a massive price premium, is it?

So far as I can see, this relies entirely on a change in government stance away from the importance of FTTP (the opposite direction to the one it is going in) and another mass of BDUK money. I would suspect that is the main factor here.

Others seem to be arguing that BT will pay? And given the factors I set out above, I’ve asked for a counter-argument to the above. Nobody has offered one so far..

We will have to wait and see what the pricing for G.fast will be come deployment time, but I can tell you two things: the early market deployment price will not be too dissimilar to the pilot pricing (£9.95 ex VAT rental a month) and the average speed performance during the trial is close to 300Mbps.

As for who pays for Openreach’s ultrafast deployment, well they do. There is no public funding for G.fast

The whole point in G.fast is that Openreach can deploy this extremely quickly to a large number of premises. If you want native FTTP rolled out to those 10 million premises who are earmarked for G.fast, then you can double the deployment time.

One fundamental thing you completely miss and fail to understand is that there is extremely limited demand for ultrafast speeds at the moment. Even native FTTP, we’re talking a small percentage take anything above 80/20. The majority of people on the faster speed variants are business customers (hence Openreach targeting business parks and high streets). It makes no commercial sense for Openreach to spend billions more deploying a technology when the ROI is not visible.

It will probably be offered as a poor man’s Fibre on Demand option. It will cost x amount if we fun fibre all the way to your property, or we can offer similar speeds using your existing copper wire for the last x number of metres for a bit less.

Or as marketing get their hands on it, it will be sold as ‘fibre to the home’ though in tech circles it will be called FNQTTP (Fibre Not Quite To The Property) and after years of marketing it that way ASA will be called in to investigate false advertising.

If my neighbours and I could split the FTTPoD cost for something like this, then ~£1000 install + £60 a month doesn’t look bad for a 300meg service, especially when we’re paying £30-40 a month now for 2meg.

A few questions i have…
The quote of “…the pods can handle up to 48 ports (rising to 96 this summer).” is this item referring to the green mini like cabinets which will be attached to the side of current cabinets? If so does that mean each mini cabinet/pod can only deliver 48 connections? If so that seems a little ridiculous, unless there are going to be several of these cabinets bolted on does that not mean a lot of people that may want the service could miss out?

Second the tests of this new box and the user having to supply power… Is there and information re: the “fibre to the distribution point” that the reverse power unit connected to a users Mains AC will use? Id assume at best its 12V but it would be nice to have the amp rating to calculate the approx years running cost to the user.

48-96 connections per pod is fine. We in the UK have been conditioned by TalkTalk and Sky to regard broadband as something we shouldn’t be paying much, if anything, for, so the take up of G.fast will be relatively low given the areas in question will already have VDSL.

Im not so sure Carl. VDSL cabinets in some areas have become full and unless im wrong i thought they provided more than 96 connections per cabinet. I imagine a cabinet that can only provide 48 connections will be taken pretty quick, even more so if it is anywhere near a few businesses.

Pricing for G.Fast i could not comment on, i know nothing about it. What is the cost likely to be to the punter compared to BT 76Mb infinity?

If we are talking a significant amount more (IE double or more) then yep i agree not likely to be taken up as quick, if its only going to cost £10 or so more for the end user though i think it will be far more popular than what can be supplied.

Not many do get 80Mb from FTTC its only the top 10% that get those kind of speeds. IF you can go from a more typical 30Mb on FTTC to around 100Mb on this i can see that being quite appealing personally.

Even if you disagree which you are free to do, ive just looked at a 500M radius my cabinet covers and it must be supplying at minimum 200 homes (120 of which is just my road).

If a Gfast pod can only supply 48 of those (less than a quarter or 25%) it is IMO a bit pointless, even with low take up i imagine for my area those 48 spots would go pretty quick. It would only take 1 in every 4 homes to fill it, and that is excluding homes the cabinet currently serves which are greater than 500M distance.

Even ignoring all that how can a solution that will only serve 25% be and future for copper lines?????

Maths and statistics are helpful at times like this, because it isn’t a matter of serving 100% of premises. It is a matter of serving demand.

Right now, the older variant of G.Fast (as tested by BT so far) will be limited to around 250m distances, on standard 0.5mm copper, where speeds will be around 100Mbps.

Sagentia reckoned on about 25% of lines being within 250m of their cabinet.

A large cabinet of 600 lines will have perhaps 150 lines that can take G.Fast. An average cabinet (300 lines) will have perhaps 75 lines that can take G.Fast. Demand can only come from these premises.

I’ve received 80/20 speeds on a line that was 350m. Obviously actual speeds vary by crosstalk, but it is plausible that every line that can get G.Fast will already be able to get 80/20 speeds, or close to.

In the wider market, takeup of FTTC is less than 50% of all broadband, and around 20% of FTTC lines take an 80/20 package over slower ones. If VM is anything to go by, then around half of these may be willing to go for even faster packages. So demand might come from 10% of FTTC lines, or around 5% of all broadband lines.

That suggests demand in a 600-line cabinet is going to be around 30 ports, and demand in a 300-line cabinet is around 15 ports.

Obviously the demand (of, say, 30 ports) is spread throughout the cabinet, and not just from the 25% of lines that happen to be within range. Demand from those in range might only amount to 10 lines.

In time, the hardware will improve to cover the newer amendments, and range will increase to cover more premises. But vectoring hardware will improve too, so 96 port pods become feasible.

“Maths and statistics are helpful at times like this, because it isn’t a matter of serving 100% of premises. It is a matter of serving demand.”

Something BT have already been shown to be incapable of by A) allowing FTTC to become full in areas and taking months to upgrade and B) saying no to certain areas until they are proven successful under an altnet.

The rest still does not explain how a service that can only serve a small amount has any point or merit.

@ alan – http://i.imgur.com/ut5TBNK.png Note: This was before the introduction of retransmission and other changes that have been made. The last numbers I saw (internal doc) were 32.5% syncing at the top rate.

“@ alan – I guess it’s not caught your attention that over 70% of people are provision on a 40Mb/s downstream product ”

I would be interested in how that equals 30% having 80Mb. 70% getting more than 40Mb equals just that, it could be anything from 40.1Mb and up, in no way means 30% equals 80Mb. Why not just post the full report to show your claims to be true?

Maybe this is why its only 10 Million premises to get G.Fast (probably less if its anything like prior BT dates and available numbers) it can only be supplied to around 1 in 3 or 4 premises.

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